75,000 people sign up as foundation members to new Tasmanian AFL team

After decades of waiting Tasmania's afl club has been officially launched with the name, colours and club logo unveiled last night.

Transcript

00:00 Foundation memberships for the Tasmania Devils Football Club went on sale at 6.30 last night

00:07 and as of a short time ago the club had sold 75,000 of them.

00:12 The initial target for the club was to sell 40,000 by October.

00:16 They've well and truly smashed that within 24 hours.

00:19 Now they are only $10 Foundation memberships, very cheap, very accessible,

00:24 but also this is a club with no players, no coach, no CEO, no staff, no ground to play at,

00:29 and a club that won't hit the ground running for another four seasons.

00:34 So it has been an enormous take up from the Tasmanian public and beyond.

00:38 Lots of debate around the unveiling of the club logo and branding.

00:42 The logo has been universally praised.

00:44 The jumper, lots of debate about the use of the Tasmanian state traditional Tassie map jumper.

00:51 But the club has moved to clarify today and clarify strongly that it is only a Foundation jumper

00:57 and not necessarily the jumper that the team will run out onto the field in in 2028 or 2029.

01:04 It was also the result of a survey and widespread community consultation undertaken by Jack Revolt

01:11 in the early part of this year.

01:13 So it's the Tassie map, the Tassie Devils and 75,000 people already signed up within 24 hours.

01:20 It's extraordinary the numbers.

01:21 I was listening to a radio report this morning where it was at 60,000,

01:24 so that's jumped 15,000 just today alone.

01:28 Chris, we're also hearing that Warner Brothers was consulted in the naming of the team.

01:35 Yeah, that's right.

01:36 So we all know the famous Warner Brothers cartoon,

01:38 the Tasmanian Devil who causes havoc in the Looney Tunes cartoons.

01:43 But what the situation was with the club and Warner Brothers was that there was an IP clash.

01:49 Warner Brothers owned the IP to the Tasmanian Devil.

01:52 The club wanted to use the Devil, of course, as the logo and the name.

01:56 The negotiations initially were very tough between the club, the AFL and also the company.

02:02 Things smoothed out a little bit though when Warner Brothers became aware

02:06 that Tasmanian Devil was the actual name of a real animal.

02:10 It was something that they hadn't quite considered.

02:13 And from there, things opened up nicely for the football club.

02:17 They entered into a shared IP arrangement, no money exchanging hands, no commercial agreement,

02:23 just a shared use of the IP.

02:25 So a good result for the football club and maybe Warner Brothers a little red-faced over that too.

02:30 Exactly, just like the Roadrunner.

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